Despite 49-9 loss, Woody Johnson sees Jets “improving rapidly”

Posted by Michael David Smith on November 2, 2013, 12:02 PM EDT

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The Jets are coming off their worst game of the season, a 49-9 loss to the Bengals in which Geno Smith was benched after his second pick-six and the defense allowed Marvin Jones to score four touchdowns. But Jets owner Woody Johnson isn’t discouraged.

In fact, Johnson says he believes the Jets are getting better all the time.

“We have a very young team,” Johnson said, via the New York Daily News. “I think it’s the third-youngest team in the NFL and it’s not an excuse. You’re going to have games like that with a young quarterback and young team — seven new players on defense — so it’s going to take them a while to coalesce. But they’re improving rapidly, and I think the coaches are very happy with the progress.”

It doesn’t get any easier for the Jets with the Saints coming to town on Sunday, but Johnson doesn’t see any reason his team can’t compete with one of the NFL’s best.

“I think we’re a good team, too. If we’re prepared properly, I think we should do very well,” Johnson said.

The Jets have alternated wins and losses every week this season. If they can surprise everyone and follow up last week’s ugly loss with a win, Johnson will be vindicated in his belief that his team is improving. But a second straight ugly loss would make it tough for anyone to buy that the Jets are really any better than they were last year.

Longtime Jets fan here……..Woody is the guy who wanted to go to manhattan instead of queens…….Woody wanted favre instead of pennington….woody wanted tebow…….Woody wanted Romney to win more than the Super Bowl…Woody wanted the jets to play on Thanksgiving……Woody wanted the Jets to play in Japan…..Woody is a clown son!

randomguy9999 says:Nov 2, 2013 12:21 PM

Huh?

you guys gave up 7 TDs in your worst gane of the season…. the last few seasons for that matter…

It’s hard to tell someone who owns something not to talk about it, but no owner should ever talk about his team. Ever, for no reason. Not ever. When was the last time an owner said anything that anyone agreed with?

The future actually looks bright for the jets for once. All it took was a GM who knew how to rebuild instead of a GM who cuts core players and signs a malcontent wide receiver, one of the biggest QB draft busts and aging linebackers to huge franchise crushing extensions and calling it a “rebuild”

I think it was General Custer who said “I think those are friendly Indians on the other side of this hill”. Clueless Mr. Magoo as the Jets owner. Why do you think the Johnson family never gave him any real responsibility in the family business?

1: It actually DOES get easier for the Jets, whose second half schedule is much softer…the Saints this week are the only top flight team they play in the second half.

2: After all the preseason hoopla about how terrible the Jets were going to be (32nd in ESPN Power Rankings, Mel Kiper saying they had the talent level of an expansion team, etc etc), how many people had the Jets splitting their first 8 games to be 4-4 halfway through?

The Jets are only improved in a few areas from last year. DL with Richardson has solidified their run defense and at QB where Smith is a huge improvement over Sanchez.

The problem for the Jets is they are much much worse in the secondary and with their OL. They lost Landry and Bell at safety and Cromartie has had a terrible year at CB. Milner has offered nothing.

The OL has regressed quite a bit. Mangold and D’Brick are both playing awful. D’Brick is a turnstyle in pass protection. Winters is a rookie and has had big problems in pass proection. Howard has done well and so has Colon but overall the OL has gone from one of the best in the league to one of the worst.

The only positive has been the play of Smith. If Sanchez was still the QB it is doubtful the Jets would have won a game this year. Sanchez would not have been able to survive in pass first offense or handle the type of rush the poor OL has allowed.

toybkshr says:Nov 2, 2013 1:19 PM

Do they drug test the owners?

joshnyc1 says:Nov 2, 2013 1:41 PM

Give credit where it’s due. Most people would not have tagged them for 4 wins so far. They weren’t the prettiest of wins, but wins none the less. They were 6-10 last year, and have a very good chance to finish better than that with a much weaker 2nd half schedule. we’ll see where this goes, but i don’t think there is a Jets fan out there who isn’t, at the least, pleasantly surprised.

So many people look at scores. Oh well that happens. If they lost 34-9 would that make it any better.

A loss is a loss and look at those same Bengels this week.

The Jet’s, even with the 2 calls going their way are much better then most people thought.

And I hate the Jets.

skippynj says:Nov 2, 2013 2:09 PM

Woody Johnson, born on third base,
Thinks he hit a triple, what a disgrace.
A dilettante’s dilettante, he can’t help but meddle,
buys all of the hog slop that fat Rex can peddle.
Whodats in town, with a real coach and owner,
will turn Woody and Rex into Moaner and Groaner.

Keep in mind the Jets were in a terrible salary cap situation after last season.

Idzik had to REALLY clean house to just get the Jets under the cap.

Any way you slice it, this is a rebuilding year. So trying to compare this team to last year is very strange when its a radically different team-they didnt’ reload to win a SB–they cleaned house. And are starting a rookie QB probably 1 or 2 years early.

Despite getting the salary cap in a MUCH better situation for 2014, the Jets are 4-4. Most people had them as the 31st or 32nd team in the league. They would have to lose the rest of their games to get to 4-12. They COULD, but at 4-4 this is much better than most predicted at the half way part of their season. And their schedule gets easier. Save for the Saints!

So yes Woody is right–its better to be young and bad than old and bad. Or young and .500.

But Woody is a lousy owner. He certainly pushed Tebow on the team and it blew up–and instead of taking responsibility he buried the prior GM. “The GM MADE me take him” How can the GM make the owner do anything? Sheesh.

Cowboys for 2014 are going to be 32 Million over the Cap from what I understand.

You cannot draft a consensus franchise qb unless you finish as one of the worst teams in the league…12 losses doesn’t do it; you need at least 13 in any year…the Jets have not finished with a record that bad since 1996…current fqbs and their first round draft position:
E. Manning (1st), Stafford (1st), Luck (1st), Bradford (1st), Newton (1st), RGIII (2nd), Ryan (3rd), Rivers (4th)
Not considered elite on draft day:
Roethlisberger (11th), Cutler (11th), Flacco (18th), Rodgers, (24th), Kaepernick (2nd round), Brees (2nd round), Wilson (3rd round), Brady (6th round) and Romo (undrafted) …therefore, by definition, not consensus fqbs on draft day (it took Brees 5 years to be considered elite, and Rodgers 4)…Cutler, Flacco, Kaepernick and Wilson are not yet seen as elite by consensus…Since 1997, only Brady, Rodgers, Brees and Roethlisberger should be considered eventual cfqbs who were drafted below the top 4 positions in the draft, and only 5 more not seen as elite on draft day have any supporters at all for such an evaluation…there aren’t enough of them to go around…not the Jets’ fault…

franchise qbs who trade themselves or get traded (usually because their physical status is questionable; i. e. Manning and Brees) have chosen other teams to move to…

Neither one of these paths has produced a fqb for the Jets since Pennington and Favre, both of whom were injured and lost potential productive years in green & white… also not the Jets’ fault…

With regard to Sanchez, many others taken high in the draft were eventually considered as drafting mistakes (Joey Harrington, Brady Quinn and Josh Freeman spring to mind)…Sanchez at least did not get in the way of the Jets’ making the conference championship game in his first 2 seasons, something that cannot be said for Harington, Quinn and Freeman…
To sum up, having a fqb requires you to either really stink the joint out first (and only in the right year), or it’s a crapshoot…let’s see how the Jets’ roll of the dice with Geno Smith turns out…